Archive for the ‘Eventful World’ Category

René Colato Laínez is the Salvadoran American award-winning author of many multicultural children’s books and has been a featured guest blogger here on the PaperTigers blog. Earlier this month René’s 10th book, Señor Pancho Has a Rancho, was released! As René says in his blog post introducing the book:

When I came to the United States, I discovered that not only people had problems learning a second language. Many farm animals had the same challenge too! El pollito said pío pío and the chick said peep peep. I am sure that you know that Old MacDonald had a farm. Now, he has a new neighbor, el señor Pancho, and in his rancho he has many animales.”

“Old MacDonald Had a Farm” goes multicultural in this rollicking Spanish-English rendition.

The barnyard animals on Old MacDonald’s and Señor Pancho’s farms have a hard time communicating. MacDonald’s rooster says cock-a-doodle-doo! While Señor Pancho’s gallo says quiquirquí. The English-speaking chick says peep, peep, but el pollito says pio, pio. Then the cow says moo—and la vaca says mu! Maybe they’re not so different after all! So all the animals come together for a barnyard fiesta, because dancing is a universal language.

Reviews

… [Readers] will enjoy learning the names of the animals in both English and Spanish and comparing the onomatopoeia in each language. Chock-full of bicultural fun on the farm. -Kirkus Reviews

This is an excellent choice for read-alouds, but it also includes a glossary and pronunciation guide, making it useful in one-on-one contexts for young readers looking to develop Spanish vocabulary. -School Library Journal

To celebrate the book release René has been deemed Luna Press and Bookstore’s author of the month in September and will be appearing in the store on September 14th to read from and sign his books. Lots of fun activities are planned and you can visit Luna’s Facebook page or René’s blog for more details. The store is located at 3790 Mission Street in San Francisco.

Anitha is Head of School Library Services at TreasureHouse.in , a Children’s Library and Experience Center located in Saptaparni, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. She also blogs over at Saffron Tree: a potpourri of book reviews and literary resources for children for a lifelong love of reading. Back in 2009 Anitha blogged about her bookshelves here. Since then she and her family have moved continents and have bookshelves all over the house with the pièce de résistance being this teak, 100 year old bookshelf she inherited.

For details on how to submit a photo of your child’s bookshelf to our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves, click here.

We started our Around the World in 100 Bookshelves project in 2009 in the hopes of featuring 100 of our readers’ bookshelves from, well, around the world! It is our hope that our combined photos will offer a glimpse of a big world made smaller through books and reading. So far we have received pics from India, Canada, UK, Philippines, Hong Kong, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Jamaica and the USA (click on the “Around the World in 100 Bookshelves” widget or here to see all the photos submitted to date).

Whether your child has too many or too few, in shelves or piles, tidy or scattered on the floor, we would love it if you could send us a photo of their books! Email the photo in .jpg format along with your child’s first name, age, city and country, to corinne(at)papertigers(dot)org and we’ll post the photo here on our blog. If you have a kidlit blog please let us know and we will include that link too. Don’t worry about capturing the whole bookshelf/book collection in the photo. A partial image, along with a reading-related anecdote and/or a few lines describing the bookshelf’s content, should be enough to help us connect across languages and cultures. We hope to feature bookshelves from all over, so please help us spread the word!

Performances will be interpreted in American Sign Language on Thu 5/8 at 10am, Fri 5/9 at 7:30, & Sun 5/11 at 3:00.

Performances will be audio-described for folks with visual impairments on Thu 5/8 at 10am, Fri 5/9 at 7:30, & Sun 5/11 at 3:00.

A “Relaxed” performance for people with sensory sensitivities will be on Saturday May 3 at 10am

Tickets are $35 – $20 based on seating. Groups of 15 or more can take $5 off the regular ticket prices. Tickets can be purchased online at www.WheelockFamilyTheatre.org or over the telephone: 617-879-2300 (Tue – Fri; 10am to 6pm)

Since 2010 PaperTigers has sent carefully chosen books to particular schools and libraries in various parts of the world. The books chosen seek to provide “multicultural” or “trans-cultural” stories that promote awareness of, knowledge about, and positive acceptance of “the other” in ways children can learn and enjoy. We are convinced of the crucial role of literacy and reading in an education that fosters understanding and empathy. To learn more about our Outreach program click here and to read our announcement of the 2012 book set click here.

Do you agree with the maxim that there are only seven stories in the world? It’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it, but our new theme, Journeys, has got me thinking about it, because, really, every story involves some kind of journey.

So we have flung the theme wide open to embrace both physical and spiritual journeys. The authors and illustrators we profile in this issue have all created books that narrate some kind of journey; do join us as we ask them about their own voyages of discovery in creating their books…

Demi, picture-book creator extraordinaire. Find out about her biographies of famous historical figures and spiritual leaders, and join herin her studio, where she works close by her Buddhist altar…

Nilesh Mistry, illustrator of many children’s books including Stories from the Silk Road. Read also about his artistic encounter with elephants…

Award-winning author Na’ima B. Robert takes us on a journey of exploration into her latest gripping YA novel Black Sheep…

Lak-Khee Tay-Audouard, illustrator of Adventures of the Treasure Fleet and the newly released Chinese Fables: The Dragon Slayer and Other Timeless Tales of Wisdom. Find out about some of the more unusual media she incorporates into her work…

Jimmy Liao shares some moments from his vibrant “journeys of the Imagination”…

Nilesh Mistry takes us on a journey through his work that encompasses book illustration, design, and painting elephants…

Our current issue of PaperTigers is entitled Journeys and includes an interview with Australian Gabrielle Wang in which she talks about her journey from an artist to a children’s book writer. Gabrielle’s newest book for middle grade readers The Wishbird is being launched this weekend and all are invited to attend! Signed limited edition Giclee prints (very high quality prints) of selected internal illustrations will be available for sale on the day.

Imagine a world without music.

Imagine if all the singers and musicians disappeared, never to be seen again. Music is outlawed. Even birds are killed because they sing. And because birds live in forests then the forests all around are burnt to stumps.

Music is an integral part of human existence. Every culture in the world makes music. Without it, the soul dies.

This is at the heart of The Wishbird.

WHEN: SATURDAY JULY 27, 3PM

WHERE: THE LITTLE BOOKROOM

759 Nicholson St, Carlton North VIC

PLEASE RSVP: gabrielle(at)gabriellewang.com

Published by Penquin Books Australia, The Wishbird is receiving rave reviews and I can hardly wait to get my hands on a copy. Do pay a visit to Gabrielle’s blog and listen to her read the first two chapters of The Wishbirdhere. You can also listen to her radio interview on Radio National, Books and Arts Daily HERE . To celebrate the book’s release Gabrielle is giving away 6 signed copies on Goodreads. Check out her Facebook page for the entry link. Congratulations Gabrielle!!

AFCC Call for Papers!

AFCC is calling for papers! We are looking for new insights on trends, observations, and developments in the field of children’s content with proposed sessions that will be useful to AFCC attendees and encourage discussion. AFCC is a conference for creative professionals, publishing industry professionals, and media industry professionals, not an academic conference, and all proposals should be targeted accordingly.

In order to qualify as a presenter, you should be published or have relevant experience in your field. Proposals should include a session outline and a one-paragraph biography of the presenter.Deadline: 19 August 2013
strong>Geographical coverage: WorldwideTopic: related to Asian content for childrenReading Fee: noneContact:kenneth(at)bookcouncil(dot)sg or stephanie(at)bookcouncil(dot)sg

Scholastic Asian Book Award 2014

The Award is presented biennially for an unpublished manuscript targeted at children aged 6 to 18 years, written by authors of Asian descent, living in Asia, who are 18 years of age and above. The Scholastic Asian Book Award 2014 offers a prize of S$10,000 and will be presented during the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in May 2014.The closing date for the submission is 21 October 2013.
Visit the website for more details!

Drawing to a close our series of guest posts by author Peter Duke about the Malaysia-focused/perspective presentations at this year’s AFCC.

Peter has written a number of children’s books that have been published under the name Peter Worthington by the exciting Malaysian publisher Oyez!Books. Originally from the UK, Peter has lived and worked in different countries in Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. He first served in the British army and was global partner of a major management consultancy firm until his retirement.

MALAYSIA NIGHT AT THE 2013 ASIAN FESTIVAL OF CHILDREN’S CONTENT

During AFCC, Malaysian Book Organisation Kota Buku hosted an evening of Malaysian music, fun and food for more than 120 guests. As the guests assembled and moved to their seats the youth orchestra and singers from the Malaysian School of Art Sekolah Seni Johor entertained us with some excellent music and songs, both traditional and modern.

The guest of honour for the night was HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah, the Sultana of Johor. She and all the guests were made to feel very welcome by Tan Sri Dato’ Asiah Abu Samah, the chairman of Kota Buku. In her welcoming speech, Tan Sri also thanked AFCC for inviting Malaysia as the country of focus at AFCC 2103 and stated that she and all the members of the Malaysian delegation extended their heartfelt thanks to Ms Claire Chiang and Mr Ramachandran and their staff for making this possible. In addition, she said she hoped that this was the start of many years of close cooperation between Kota Buku and AFCC and the first step in a journey of bringing like-minded organisations from Asian countries together in close cooperation.

After Tan Sri’s speech, Emila Yusof of the Malaysian delegation, and this year’s Guest illustrator at AFCC, presented The Sultana with one of her iconic pictures and two of her latest books. Ain Maisarah, Malaysian author of the ‘Wannababe…’ series presented the Sultana with a set of her books. Then it was time for music food and fun. The tables groaned under masses of excellent Malaysian-style food including giant prawns, Nonya style curried chicken, beef rendang, fried rice, steamed vegetables and noodles followed by a typical Malaysian desert and fruits; a seemingly endless stream of food to suit all tastes.

Continuing our series of guest posts by author Peter Duke about the Malaysia-focused/perspective presentations at this year’s AFCC.

Peter has written a number of children’s books that have been published under the name Peter Worthington by the exciting Malaysian publisher Oyez!Books. Originally from the UK, Peter has lived and worked in different countries in Asia, including Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. He first served in the British army and was global partner of a major management consultancy firm until his retirement.

Ahmad Redza, who is currently the President of IBBY (the International Board on Books for Young People), gave a very polished presentation on his chosen subject. He made the point a number of times of his firm belief that children and books together create a greater understanding of different races, cultures and religions.
He stressed that children are our future and by bridging the gap through literature we create a platform for peace. A well-illustrated picture book can be read and understood in any language. Literature serves as a powerful vehicle for helping children understand themselves, their communities and the world.

‘Children in crisis’ is an important IBBY project. The key thrust of this is to bring knowledge through books and literature to children who are recovering from trauma caused by earthquakes, rebellion, loss of citizenship and being separated from their parents and often being driven from their homes. Reading, and learning to read, can bring peace of mind and help in a child’s recovery. But just giving a child a book is not sufficient; he or she needs to be taught how to use a book to gain greatest benefit from them.

In conclusion Redza reiterated his belief that through literature, children can bridge the gap between races, religions and cultures across countries and make the world a better place for all.

Then, at the end of his talk Redza also gave a brief overview of IBBY and its roles and projects.